William Michael Morgan Has Been to Therapy — and He Recommends It
William Michael Morgan's debut single, "I Met a Girl," shot to the top of the charts, and his current single, "Missing," has quickly become a fan favorite as well. Those successes are nice, but Morgan says that he really knew things were going well when he noticed concert attendees singing along to songs that weren't singles.
"More people are coming to the shows. More people are not only singing "I Met a Girl," but they’re singing track six, and track seven, and a couple of them even know track nine and track 10," Morgan tells The Boot. "I introduce these songs, and they’re just cheering and having a good time and singing along with them."
As a teenager, Morgan performed in small clubs in Vicksburg, Miss., before moving to Nashville at the age of 19. He hasn't looked back.
"It was either this or roofing and backhoe. It was either this or some sort of construction, and I said, ‘Man, it’s too hot to be out there. I’ve got to get up here and write a couple songs,'" shares Morgan. "It’s what I always hoped I was going to do; it’s what I always believed I was going to do. Thanks to Warner Bros. and fans and radio and the good Lord, we are making that a reality."
Morgan admits that his rise happened quickly enough that he needed some help dealing with how rapidly life had changed. So, the 23-year-old looked into counseling -- "not that anything's wrong or I'm going crazy," Morgan assures, "but just to kind of get my head wrapped around it a little more."
Porter's Call, the organization that Morgan found, aims "to be a service of counsel, support and encouragement to recording artists and their families," according to their website, and "provide a safe and confidential refuge for artists to deal with the issues they face."
"[The counselor] actually mentioned how your childhood molds you into the person, the man or woman, that you can be -- how things happened in your childhood, how this may cause this to happen, and how you react to that is completely how you were raised," Morgan continues. "Some people may keep it in. Some people may talk about their problems. Some people may do this or that … It was a very good deal. I would recommend a lot of people going to do that. It’s really eye-opening."
Morgan notes that what's surprised him most in his career so far is how welcoming other artists have been.
"I haven’t really met a lot of jerks. They’re all pretty nice," he says. "Everybody’s family. Everybody’s got the brotherhood and the sisterhood thing going on, and that’s what I love about it."